The first half of 2022 was not too bad on the miniature painting front, but I fell far short of the 4 armies I was hoping to complete before the summer months.

After the weather cooled, I just couldn't get back into the habit, and until recently I had not picked up a brush since June.

However, I found myself with a run of six days with no work during December. Though I probably should have been thinking about getting Christmas sorted, I instead decided to dive back in at the deep end and have a massive painting week.

Rather than continue working on the things I'd already started, I had the bright idea to try and paint my entire 6mm android army within the six day period. Difficult, at my painting speed, but as they are mostly metallic, I thought it might be possible.

Of course, I was wrong.

It's not like I didn't try either. On two of the days, I painted for 10 hours straight, and there was also an 8 hour shift, two 6 hours and a 4. I just don't paint fast enough to get shit done.

I didn't help my cause when I realised too late that I had not fully cleaned the mold lines when I assembled the army back in 2009. Oh well. Too late to worry about that at this point, so I just soldiered on. They're an unoffical army anyway, so getting them done in a quick and cheap way would be fine by me.

I threw further wrenches into the gears when I decided the walkers needed proper bases, so I glued them onto some cheap 25mm bases I'd got, and plugged the gaps using thinned down filler. They do look a lot better, and more closely match the Ork Stompers in size now, which are their most direct comparison.

After the six days were up, I'd made some progress, but I was a long way off. Half of the infantry and all of the walkers were base painted and washed, awaiting highlights. The other half of the infantry was mostly base painted, just needing a few more details on the weapons and things. But I had not started the three big models at all.

We got the new Epic rules back to the tabletop recently in a good weekend of dice rollin' action. Up first Gareth took control of the Imperials against Scoob, who was using the android army I put together from Dark Realm Miniatures many years ago. This was the first time these two armies had been used in these new rules, and it came right down to the wire.

After a few hours of exchanging laser blasts and missiles, and the clashing of blades on armour, the androids won the day by just 43 pts. In a 6000pt game, 43pts is basically nothing.

The day after, it was my turn to take control of the Imperial forces, as Scoob brought the Nidz into the game for the first time, leaving only the Eldar and Squats in need of introduction.

In another 6000pt game, volleys of battlecannon and lascannon fire tore into the Nidz. They pulled it back somewhat once they got closer in, but I managed a 3452-2884 win. It definitely seemed like the Nidz psychic powers need buffing, and some of their units need a little combat boost, so I'll make that happen for their next Epic-S adventure.

<Old Stuff>

It's about time some stuff from my old website returned from the pits of obscurity.

And what could be more obscure than my first ever battle report, using a long forgotten homebrew ruleset, with miniatures from my first ever Games Workshop purchase all the way back in the early 90s?

Now I can not lie. I never actually played Warhammer. Well, that is, other than one demo game in a Games Workshop after the release of fourth edition, during which Scooby's goblins beat my high elves, drawing gasps of shock from the red shirts, as goblins never won the demo game.
Yep, that's my wargaming skill in action right there.

Still, in my very early wargaming years it seemed like I was going to get more into fantasy than sci-fi, something that I assume changed when I fell in love with the look of Epic Space Marine.

In the early 90s, I collected quite a few fantasy models. Indeed, the first GW purchase I ever made was the "Warhammer Fantasy Regiments" box, which had ten each of wood elves, dwarves, goblins, orcs, skaven and dark elves. I think what I wanted to do, even as a young teenager, was create my own rules. But other than a few little attempts nothing much came of them, especially as other games took hold of me.

Of these attempts, records of just one remained, and from these historical documents, I created a battle report for my old site back in January 2015. That report is now resurrected here.

Show / hide battle report

Just recently went to a wargaming market for the first time, where sellers were peddling all kinds of goods. Mostly it was second hand 40K stuff as well as lots of historical miniatures. But there were some other interesting things as well.

After somehow resisting the urge to buy a 40K Stormlord for £30 (I really wanted it, but have not really used my other 2 super heavy tanks yet), I only came away with some new MDF bridges.

It's not taken long to get these pieces finished, but they needed some modifications to make them usable. Firstly, I noticed the side panels protruded beneath the lower surface of the bridges. I guessed these panels could potentially dig in to my polystyrene hills and damage them. It was also very evident that the bridges were not very strong.

So to fix both issues, I added support and thickness to the underside of the bridges, using coffee stirrers and thick card.

After that, it was an easy task to add some paint and textures.

I've managed a few other little things these last couple of weeks, after finally varnishing my last lot of completed terrain, and starting the work needed to finish my Eldar MDF terrain. The power generators are going to need the most work. I really didn't like the look of the gaps in the wooden crystals, so I've started building up some filler, so that I can try and sand them down and make them more crystal-ish. Thinking about it now, there's probably 101 better ways of doing this. But whatever.

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I've not painted any miniatures since way back in June some time. As I assumed, the hot weather forced me away, and I have not yet found the motivation to go back now the weather is cooler again.

So much for making this a huge painting year.

Still, I'm looking to get back into it now, and have varnished the Epic Orks that needed it.

In addition, I'd not lined up all my 40K Imperial Guard for many years. So have done that as well.

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It's been a long time coming, but we finally managed to have a little refresher battle of our new Epic rules recently.

In this one, Gareth dipped his toes into the game for the first time, and took control of the Orks against my Chaos.

It was a short, close and bloody battle which ended with Gareth picking up the win. Even though I had more units at the end, I just didn't have enough left to trouble the two Stompas.